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Episode 462: On Podcasting and Gardens with Debbie Millman
455 Plays7 days ago
"I'm much more interested in how a person achieves something than in what they specifically achieved," says Debbie Millman, the "Pod Mother" and OG podcaster, twenty years in for Design Matters.
She's also the author of the new book Love Letter to a Garden (Timber Press).
In this episode, we talk about:
- The 20 year arc of Design Matters
- What people she’s most drawn to
- How she views the narrative arc of an interview
- The research
- As well as the evergreen themes of her new book on her quest for a garden
You can find Debbie at debbiemillman.com and on Instagram @debbiemillman.
Podcast Specific Substack at creativenonfictionpodcast.substrack.com.
Newsletter: Rage Against the Algorithm
Show notes: brendanomeara.com
Recommended
Transcript
Anticipation and Workshops
00:00:00
Speaker
AC and Efforts were like six weeks away from the publication of the Front Runner, and I got a nice review in Publishers Weekly. i don't know what to say about that or how to share it or how to do it or or whatever, but it know.
00:00:12
Speaker
Beats the alternative. I'd be sure to secure yourself a pre-order while supplies last. Call now. But seriously, go to your bookseller of choice and maybe pre-order it. Allow me also to say that my friend Kim Cross, who I owe just about everything to, is co-instructing a workshop called the Feature Writing, The Reconstructed Narrative with Hampton Sides and Glenn Stout at the Archer City Writers' Workshops, May 28th to June 1st at the Larry McMurtry Literary Center in Texas.
Live Events and Podcasting Milestones
00:00:45
Speaker
Visit lmcmurtrylitcenter.org slash events to learn more and possibly enroll in a potentially life-changing workshop. Seriously.
00:00:57
Speaker
Also, it's getting close. Like so close. Like two days close, depending on when you listen to this. For the next live taping of the podcast, if you're in Eugene on Sunday, April 13th at 1 p.m. at Gratitude Brewing, I'll be interviewing my pal Leah Cetilli about Blazing Eye Sees All, her latest book. It's amazing.
00:01:18
Speaker
Dig it. I don't think I understood how bad I was. And so I just kept doing it.
00:01:31
Speaker
after just created a nonfiction podcasts a show i speak to tell us of true tales about the true tales tell i'm your host brenda mayor don't leave please stay Hey, look who's back on the podcast for her third rodeo. It's the pod mother herself, Debbie Millman, who is celebrating 20 years of her podcast Design Matters pioneering interview podcast, a show she started on a whim to spark her creativity in 2005.
00:01:58
Speaker
Where were you back then? Dark days for you, boy. Debbie also has a new book out called Love Letter to a Garden with Recipes by her wife, Roxanne Gay. You may have heard of her. It's published by Timber Press.
00:02:10
Speaker
It's a meditative exploration of wonder wrought by the natural botanical order of working with nature, of success through failure. It's packaged with beautiful art and Debbie's distinctive hand-drawn lettering.
00:02:25
Speaker
You can learn more about Debbie at DebbieMillman.com and follow her on Instagram at Debbie Millman. Amazing stuff. Hey, show notes to this episode more BrendanDomero.com.
Podcast Support and Formats
00:02:34
Speaker
Hey, there. You can read hot blogs.
00:02:37
Speaker
Sign up for the monthly Rage Against the Algorithm newsletter. I'm getting more and more ragey these days, so if you want book recommendations, cool links, and good cheer, sign up. First of the month, no spam. As far as I can tell, you can't beat it.
00:02:50
Speaker
There's also now a weekly companion pod stack at creative nonfictionpodcast.substack.com. That's a lot of letters. I trust your typing skills. If you want the transcripts and the text of the parting shot and deep dives into the archives, this is the newsletter to enrich in your CNF pod experience.
00:03:07
Speaker
Here's the thing. I'm thinking more along the lines of doing a Dropbox link to the transcript. So if you want to see the whole thing, go download it for free.
00:03:18
Speaker
But I'm doing more of this Maria Popovian, old school brain pickings kind of riff where maybe I'll do 500 to 1,000 words with a lot of quotes, kind of like a mini profile, mini feature that shapes the conversation a little bit. So you get a, I don't know, a little more interpretation on my behalf while also spotlighting the feature person. That way the body of the pod stack isn't too long where it can be like 10,000 words of a transcript. And this way it's like a tenth of that.
00:03:46
Speaker
But if you want the entire transcript, go download it. I did that with Nick Davidson's issue you know for episode 461. So you can check that out and see if you like that.
00:03:57
Speaker
So maybe for this one, i was also thinking of doing like five to ten of the best quotes from that episode and just putting that in the body. You can use that for inspiration whatever.
00:04:09
Speaker
I don't know. It's fluid. All I'll say is that it's moving in a direction that I think is more of service to you. And your attention. You can also shop around at patreon.com slash cnfpod to throw a few bucks into the kitty.
00:04:22
Speaker
This usually gets you some face-to-face time with me and other goodies that I share, ah like my book proposal for the frontrunner and my master spreadsheet for organizing research. And if a few bucks in this economy, am I right, is a bit much, go leave a kind review on Apple Podcasts or a rating wherever you listen to them.
00:04:40
Speaker
Haven't had a fresh one in a long time, and it helps to have new ones. And they help the wayward see and effort decide where to spend their time. So Debbie is the author of Why Design Matters, Conversations with the World's Most Creative People, How to Think Like a Great Graphic Designer.
00:04:56
Speaker
and self-portrait as your trader, among a few others. She's the co-founder of the School of Visual Arts in New York City. She's interviewed hundreds and hundreds of people over 20 years, from Ira Glass to Maria Popova, Seth Godin to Thomas Kael, Anita Hill to Celeste Ng, David Remnick to Claire Danes, and my apologies to the other luminaries who didn't get their shout-out here, but it did take me the full hour to recite them all. It's amazing.
00:05:25
Speaker
And here, Debbie and I talk about her 20-year arc of design matters, what people she's most drawn to, how she views the narrative arc of an interview, the research component, as well as the evergreen themes of her new book on her quest for a garden.
00:05:40
Speaker
Parting shot this week, I'm giving it all away. But for now, please enjoy my conversation with the ever-generous and brilliant Debbie Millman. Huh.
00:05:55
Speaker
Tell it to me like you're watching a movie. One tiny lowercase lol will fucking sail me through. Editing is about helping the writer think. This is going to have to interest somebody somewhere other than me.
00:06:15
Speaker
20 years of Design Matters. It's just amazing. that ah What an accomplishment and to be in it for that long and the perseverance that it takes to stay with it and to be such a ah mainstay. the The pod mother, as I like to call you.
00:06:29
Speaker
ah Oh, my God. Nobody's ever called me that before. oh wow. fred did Thank you. That's so great. Oh, yeah. Well, it in I love, too, that it's still an audio experience. You you know, you've resisted the clarion call for video, and ah what which I really like. I love that Marc Maron still does it just does audio. I love that you're just doing audio.
00:06:53
Speaker
And I just wanted to get your sense of if that's something that, you know, you just see yourself continuing to lean into, for sure, as the show continues. Oh, absolutely. First of all, most of my guests always ask the or always say, this isn't going to be video, right? And I'm always like, nope, it's not going to be video. I mean, I do use video to see them so that I can...
00:07:18
Speaker
see their reactions and whatnot, but i don't I don't use any of it and it all actually just goes away on its own after like three days or something. We just keep the audio. But I also don't want have to think about how I look. right I just don't want to have to think about my hair and my makeup and my outfits. And it's just it's just not my priority. And as a result, i don't I don't want to change the sort of intimacy of hearing it in your ears.
00:07:46
Speaker
For sure. For sure. And I love I think in the the first conversation we had a few years ago, ah you you described the early podcast that you did and, you know, being on ah two landlines, opposing landlines, like within the same rooms. And i I'd love for you to just describe describe that again, just to refresh that image.
00:08:06
Speaker
Well, I started the show in 2005 after i got a cold call from an fledgling internet radio network called Voice America.
00:08:17
Speaker
And i want to make the distinction between Voice America and Voice of America very different. This was very much apolitical.
Origins and Techniques in Podcasting
00:08:25
Speaker
And they I thought they were actually offering me a job. and I was curious as to why they thought I might be qualified to be a radio host, given I had no experience in that discipline at all.
00:08:41
Speaker
And in fact, they really weren't offering me a job. They were offering me an opportunity to pay them to produce this, I guess, vanity show. And at the time, I was really somewhat desperate for a way to reignite my creativity after a decade in corporate design and branding and thought this might be a way to do that. And so I signed on and paid them the money and found out that the way that we were doing this was with handheld
00:09:18
Speaker
telephone sets connected to a modem that would then push the audio through the wires to their location in Arizona. And so all of my guests came to my office, which happened to be in the Empire State Building at that time. So I was actually very legitimately able to say broadcasting live from the Empire State Building, whereas most radio stations actually just have an antenna on the top. of the Empire State Building. And so I was really like legit doing that.
00:09:50
Speaker
But the sound was terrible. i mean, it was truly dreadful. So it was sitting about three feet across from the person. we had that echo, as you mentioned, that would happen when, you know, a pile of people get on the phone on a landline when they're talking to grandma and everybody's talking at the same time. And you hear all the echoes and the feedback. And yeah,
00:10:09
Speaker
I did the show that way for a couple of years, believe it or not. And they're essentially unlistenable unless you want to get a sense of how bad a person could be in early podcasting.
00:10:22
Speaker
That's a big reason why I leave up my early episodes as well to, if anyone wants to go back to get a sense of lowering the barrier of entry, that it doesn't have to sound super polished to get started.
00:10:34
Speaker
And I think that's pretty important to show like the the rough drawings, if you will, to be like, this is what it looks like. It doesn't have to be perfect. it's It's embarrassing. It's embarrassing to know how bad I was.
00:10:47
Speaker
um well how would you say, ah like the audio is one thing, but would you characterize your performance on mic objectively bad? Yes.
00:10:59
Speaker
Yes, I absolutely would. I am astonished at how bad I was. First of all, I was really fawning of my guests. and And I can understand why. You know, I spoke to a lot of my heroes, but I didn't contain it. I was sort of overtly fawning. So that was, you know, a little embarrassing. um and then I just didn't really have any sense of what a narrative arc should be, the journey of an interview.
00:11:31
Speaker
Even in my second interview, I remember asking a friend of mine who I had interviewed for that show, what could I do better? And she said, well, maybe it would be better if you really listened to my answer before asking another question. Mm-hmm.
00:11:47
Speaker
And then I remember Hillman Curtis, who I was doing a video interview with, telling me the late great Hillman Curtis, I should add, ah saying, you don't need to say mm-hmm after every answer.
00:12:01
Speaker
And so I learned to stop doing that through that knowledge and feedback. So, yeah, I had a lot to learn. When did you get a sense that you were starting to hit your stride?
00:12:12
Speaker
Well, I did 100 episodes on Voice America. And then in 2009, launched a graduate program at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. And when we were setting up the space, I asked the president of the college if I could have a little podcast studio. I knew another program had one, and he agreed and said that I could. and So that's where i'm I'm actually sitting right now doing our podcast today. just a little studio in our graduate program in Chelsea in Manhattan.
00:12:50
Speaker
And even then, it took me a little bit of a ah I think a little bit of time to get into the groove. I had a new producer. he would give me show notes. I would say that maybe i began to get decent by like 2010, 2012.
00:13:07
Speaker
ten twenty twelve I think I started to get better. and then i would say now I feel like i'm a I'm a good, solid, respectable interviewer. I would say that occurred maybe 2017 or so.
00:13:23
Speaker
Oh, far more than respectable and definitely a model for people. for For anyone, I always appreciate the economy with which you ask questions. We've talked about this before, but I think you have a preternaturally great shot clock to get in in and get out and not answer a question for the guests. You really set the table for them to be the star.
00:13:46
Speaker
Oh, thank you. Yeah, i you know, the timing thing is funny because... When I do the show in person with a guest, my producer's in the room with us, and at some point in the interview, and it's inevitable, it happens in every single one, he'll look at his watch.
00:14:04
Speaker
And he might just be wanting to know what time it is, but I'm always very worried that he's bored. And he's looking to like snap this up. So I'm always super conscious of timing when I'm with him.
00:14:20
Speaker
But it it's because I did so many episodes with him in person. Now, even when we do them remotely, I'm super conscious of staying on point and not going too long in the tooth.
00:14:32
Speaker
yeah How do you shape an interview and give it give it guardrails, but leaving yourself open to that improvisation, the the listening component where you might you might veer off, um not off track, but you know you have your plan in your call sheet, but then just based on the way the conversation's going, you're like, okay, we're going we're going over here now.
00:14:56
Speaker
People have asked me about my style and I've really had to think about it because it wasn't something that i constructed. Oh, I'm going to be this kind of interviewer um again because I've been doing it for so long.
00:15:09
Speaker
It has evolved over time more organically than anything. And I certainly have been influenced by other interviewers and reading about the art of an interview and so forth. But I like to say, because it feels the most introspective about my style, is that I i view a good interview like a game of billiards, where you not only want to get the balls in the pockets when you play, you also want to leave the balls on the table
00:15:42
Speaker
in position to try to continue to get more pockets as opposed to sort of the back and forth with a person, you know, a volley. It's not a volley in in billiards. It's you want to keep playing. for his You can want the balls for as long as you can have them.
00:15:57
Speaker
And so I try to do that. So I ask a question wherever the guest goes on the table, so to speak. I want to be able to hit another ball from that.
00:16:11
Speaker
And so I have to do enough research to be able to pivot on a dime. You know, if they go there, i want to go with them. Sometimes it means...
00:16:23
Speaker
skipping over a whole slew of questions I was really looking forward to asking, but I follow their lead. And then if they bring up a topic, unless it's like egregiously out of chronological order, i will tend to then go back to where I left off.
00:16:41
Speaker
But most of the time, if they take me someplace new, I follow and then continue from that point. And a moment ago, you said, you know, you were really hitting a good stride 2012-ish, but, you know, maybe really hitting in that that nice sweet spot by 2017.
00:16:59
Speaker
And so that's a good dozen years in to it. A lot of repetition, lot lot of shows. What do you owe your your staying power and perseverance to to keep, you know leaning into that improvement over over what was, you know, really a long time?
00:17:16
Speaker
I don't think i understood how bad I was. And so i just kept doing it. I mean, part of the reason that you can still listen to the old shows is to see that you can really, really be bad at something and get better over time.
00:17:32
Speaker
And I didn't understand just how dreadful I was. I look back on that and listen to some of those shows. I i feel like can't really listen to my shows. I just find listening to my shows almost unbearable. I do them in the moment and then they're edited and produced by Curtis Fox, my producer, and and then they go out in the world. I don't approve his edits. I don't give him feedback on his edits. And i don't listen to the final shows because I just can't bear the idea of what I sound like. But he does he does give me notes so I i can continually improve.
00:18:07
Speaker
So that that's helpful. And oftentimes when I when i speak with ah journalists and other writers on the show, ah especially biographers and people do features and those kind of those kind of long profiles, I love I love asking them why they're drawn to particular people. You know, maybe what do they see of themselves in these people that they're drawn to? And um I know that's true for me in a certain subset of people.
00:18:31
Speaker
ah But I wonder for you just with the show, you know, or who do you find yourself most drawn to? Well, I'm drawn to almost anyone that's created something from nothing.
00:18:42
Speaker
or has built upon something from something really meaningful. But the best conversations and the people I enjoy talking to most are people that come to the show wanting to have a conversation, wanting to take that sort of high altitude view of the arc of their lives.
Interview Philosophy and Guest Dynamics
00:19:03
Speaker
Because of that, now When people write me about wanting to be on the show where their publicist is inevitably right and and are pitching them to be on the show, i always, when i when I do want somebody to be on the show, I respond with a fairly lengthy email about...
00:19:23
Speaker
my approach that they can share with their guest because i don't know if that guest has listened to the show or has even heard of the show. And I found before I did that, if I did accept somebody else's pitch to come on the show,
00:19:40
Speaker
They were likely pitching because of some new book that they had out or a movie or a piece of music and didn't understand that it was going to take a good 45, 50 minutes of the interview before I got to this new thing that they were doing. And some people indicated before I started providing that, you know, like, when are we going to get to like ah Soon, don't worry. um Or they were impatient because they wanted to just talk about the book and not anything else.
00:20:12
Speaker
So I've had to make that really clear to people that I don't invite. People that I do invite and respond to me generally respond because they do know the show and do want to be on.
00:20:25
Speaker
Yeah, I find that odd that ah certain certain people, all they want to do is come on and try to ah promote the work at hand. But what I find, and I'm sure what you found as well, is that what sells the book or the movie or anything more is when you can really lock into that person's personality and what drives them. and what motivates them to get up every day and do the the unseen, unheralded work to bring this thing that is pretty into the world.
00:20:53
Speaker
And to me, that sells the work better than, well, let's unpack you know a few chapters without spoiling too much of the plot. like So I feel like people that ah that can lock into that, it's going to be just a much more, don't I'm more inclined to then go buy the book if I know a little bit more about the author and the in the arc of their career.
00:21:12
Speaker
Absolutely. Without a doubt. I'm much more interested in how a person achieves something than in what they specifically achieve. yeah I'm very happy to talk about a book's plot.
00:21:24
Speaker
I'm very happy to talk about a piece of music, but I'm much more interested in the how they made that piece of music or that piece of art. I'm much more interested in their journey to getting to a place in their lives, the conditions that led to their making of that thing.
00:21:43
Speaker
That's what I'm fascinated by. And I suspect just having done this for so long at such a high level that you just you're yeah inundated with with pitches of people who desperately and really want to be on the show and have that experience of sitting across the table from you.
00:22:00
Speaker
But you can't have them all on. And i I suspect you probably publish a neighborhood. I know sometimes you take some breaks. So it might be you do you do roughly like 30 something new ones a year.
00:22:11
Speaker
About 40. About 40. Generally about 40. Yeah. So you're turning a lot of people away, too. So how do you go about curating the people that you ultimately invite on and record with?
00:22:23
Speaker
Mostly i and I invite people that i find to be endlessly fascinating. And i don't always get responses, but sometimes I do. And that's wonderful when I get a response from somebody that I didn't expect to get a response from.
00:22:38
Speaker
But I also do get a lot of pitches now and i read them all. Some of them surprise me. I'm always really, really surprised when I get a pitch for, say, pool supplies or laminate countertops because i then I'm just on somebody's list, some some list of of people that like design. Yeah. So that's always surprising to me.
00:23:07
Speaker
but But I do get a lot of pitches. And I also do a column for printmag.com where I started a column four years ago, I think at this point, called What Matters?
00:23:20
Speaker
And it's a Proustian questionnaire of sorts where I ask the same 10 questions to everybody that I invite to participate in the column. and then create a piece of art with their photograph.
00:23:33
Speaker
And so a lot of the people that I can't interview on Design Matters, I'll often, if I'm really interested in their work, ask them if they'd like to participate in the What Matters column.
00:23:44
Speaker
And it's obviously a very different medium, but ah it it gives me a way to at least include people that I think are doing really interesting things in just a different way. at What change have you noticed in yourself in the 20 year arc to date of the show?
00:24:03
Speaker
Well, I guess from a tangibility perspective, the number of people that reach out to me to be on the show yeah as opposed to me reaching out to them.
00:24:15
Speaker
And so back in the day, no one reached out to me when we first started. i I reached out to everyone. And now I would say, you know, the tables have have turned quite a bit, but I still do reach out to a lot of people.
00:24:32
Speaker
I'm still super surprised when I get a yes. I'm even more surprised when I get a yes, I listen to the show. when I reached out to Claire Danes and she responded really enthusiastically because she was a fan of the show, i almost fell off my chair.
00:24:47
Speaker
um and And when that happens, I just feel so, i don't know, just like my heart bursts. but Yeah, isn't that great when that happens in the way and when they get it, like they get the show. It's not that they just heard heard ah heard a few bites here and there, like they really understand it.
00:25:03
Speaker
Yes, yes. when When Tommy Kail, who's the director of Hamilton and so many other things now, um his PR person reached out, i was just like, I thought I was being pranked.
00:25:14
Speaker
every Every year, Maria Popova on Marginalian now, ah she tends to do you know these ah every single year of the show. eight ah Her website ages. She adds like another lesson she's learned. Yes. And ah i wouldn't I wouldn't ask you what what are 20 lessons you've learned over 20 years of the ah Design Matters. But i would I would pose to you what are some some of the big takeaways and big lessons that you have, in fact, learned over the over the run of the show?
00:25:40
Speaker
Ongoing, of course. um Well, I would say be prepared for any kind of personality. I do, as you've mentioned, I do a lot of research. Yeah.
00:25:51
Speaker
And it's very important not only to research and read everything you can about a person, no matter what they do. Certainly, if they're an artist, I'm going to look at their art. Certainly, if they're a musician, I'm going to listen to their music.
00:26:06
Speaker
they're a performer, I'm going to watch them perform. But it's very, very important to watch the way they are in other interviews.
00:26:18
Speaker
Because not any no no one is the same and everybody's going to come to an interview with themselves. And if they're... wanting to do a real interview, not coming as a character, they're coming as themselves.
00:26:32
Speaker
And so, you know, Rick Rubin is going to be very different than Claire Danes, who's going to be very different than Tommy Kail, who's going to be very different from Paula Sher, who's going to be very different from Ethan Hawke.
00:26:44
Speaker
And David Byrne is going to be different than Nico Muley. So it's very important that you try to understand who the person is and sort of live in their world as you are researching so that you can speak to them in a way that is respectful and not cookie cutter.
00:27:08
Speaker
So i'm i'm yes, I'm coming as me, but I also understand that this person likes to improvise answers and doesn't like to be asked the same questions. i mean i don't know that anybody does, but where this person tends to push play when they're talking about their latest book. So make sure you ask questions they haven't asked before so that everything feels fresh.
00:27:32
Speaker
And so things like that is we always prepare, like over-prepare. I over-prepare. And I know I overprepare. I don't know that you could ever prepare too much. Some people are like, oh, don't overprepare. like, how do you go about overpreparing? The more you know, the better you'll be.
00:27:47
Speaker
um i So so i I tend to be somebody that tries to really lay the groundwork for whoever's coming together.
00:27:58
Speaker
into my conversation feels really good about the experience and isn't aggravated or feeling impatient or irritated by my questions. Now, that doesn't always, I have had people irritated by my questions and I have had people be really annoyed by the way I do interviews, but that's also now why I've created this document with, this is how I do an interview and this is what to expect and we're going to talk for, you know, an hour to an hour and a half and things like that.
00:28:31
Speaker
I've learned and I'm continuing to learn and will probably always continue to learn how to really listen. lot of people, including myself, talk talk talk talk talk talk talk, talk, talk, wait for somebody else to finish talking before we start talk, talk, talk, talk talking again.
00:28:50
Speaker
And, and that I think is just human nature and So that's sort of a consciousness that I bring to having conversations to not have to be the smartest person in the room and not have to be the best questioner, you know, just to to be as natural as possible. The looser you are, the better the conversation will be.
00:29:14
Speaker
And that's sometimes hard when you're talking to somebody you really admire and you're really nervous. So you don't want to mess up or look silly or whatever. And so that's a conscious practice.
00:29:27
Speaker
And that over, and I wouldn't even call it over, like I, I'm similarly ah an over preparer. i liken it to have it like a NFL coaches with their big call sheets and all color coded and, and they, yeah, and then yeah, exactly. Exactly. It's like they can go every, any which way. And I, and I think to your point about being able to listen it It allows you to listen more because like to your billiard reference, you can go in any direction that the guest is taking you because you've done all that homework and that legwork.
00:29:59
Speaker
And it does allow you to sink into it a bit more when you're able to prepare and you're not frenetically trying to keep up and think about what you're going to ask next. You're like, OK, I i've got this. I can see the field.
00:30:11
Speaker
Exactly. i feel. Much more secure when I go into ah an interview feeling like I fully understand who they are and i can sort of feel their psyche, if if that makes sense.
00:30:26
Speaker
Yeah. Oh, for sure. and in what way is design matters in the expanded universe kind of like a a garden unto itself?
Gardening and Creativity
00:30:36
Speaker
Yeah. Um, it's a great question. i do think a lot of opportunities have come my way that would not have had I not started the podcast. Certainly some of my books.
00:30:46
Speaker
because I've done three books of of interviews at this point. And so I feel that those likely would not have happened had I not already established myself as an interviewer.
00:30:58
Speaker
I think that I've also gotten certain speaking engagements because people want me to do live interviews with folks. And that's been a real gift. I love doing that. I love doing live interviews.
00:31:10
Speaker
It's a very different yeah structure. It's kind of terrifying too. Yeah. Well, it is, but you also have a third party in the conversation and that's the audience. And so you not only have to manage the narrative arc with your guest, but you also have to manage the sort of nascent participation of the audience.
00:31:32
Speaker
But I like that. And i like I like breaking the fourth wall and like turning to the audience and sort of shrugging or smiling or giving them a sort of, yeah, we know that's not really true. Let's hear more. Stuff like that.
00:31:44
Speaker
And in your new book, there's a a moment where you where you associate ah what you wrote your where you associate gardening with a but the sense of wonder. And i think the same could be said for a conversation. so is Is that an ethos you like to bring to your conversations, too, that this is an opportunity for wonder?
00:32:01
Speaker
Well, I think there's an opportunity for magic, which I guess is one step sort of to the left at or to the right of wonder. There is a certain click that happens in an interview.
00:32:14
Speaker
where you're suddenly on the same road riding bicycles next to each other at the same speed, seeing the same view, feeling the same air.
00:32:24
Speaker
And i think that provokes a certain kind of endorphin rush in me. But it only happens when we're click when I'm clicking with someone. It doesn't happen.
00:32:35
Speaker
vol It's involuntary. i can't conjure that experience or that feeling. It just happens. And then I know that we're sort of both experiencing the sort of same reality at the same time, same moment, same place, and the same vibe.
00:32:53
Speaker
and And I love that feeling. And again, that comes from somebody that's really looking to have a deep conversation about things that matter to them.
00:33:04
Speaker
And that's very precious. I mean, somebody's trusting me enough to be able to share who they are in a deeply meaningful way. I do not take that for granted. And not everybody wants to do that. So when it happens, it's beautiful. I love when it happens.
00:33:22
Speaker
Oh, for sure. yeah it's um Yeah, it's magical to hear it, too, when you can really so hear a particular conversation. like ah ah Just one that I re-listened to recently was that you and Arisha K. Shearway of a song a Song Exploder. I just wanted to dive back into that one. And there was just ah there was a ah magical component to the rapport that the two of you had, and you've had that with several other people over the years, but that one...
00:33:46
Speaker
And recency biases because I just listened to it recently. I'm like, ah, this is this is the magic of of a great interviewer and a great conversationalist with a guest who comes to play ball. Exactly. Exactly.
00:33:59
Speaker
Exactly. you You totally got it. What was it about your your lifelong love of gardens and gardening that made you want to take this ah beautiful, ah so illustrated approach to yeah your your love affair with with gardens? It goes back to your days in on Staten Island.
00:34:18
Speaker
Well, I never intended to write a book about gardening. That was not on my bucket list. It wasn't even on a checklist. I love gardening, but most of my life has been experiments in failure.
00:34:33
Speaker
as a gardener, um especially as an urban gardener, because it's really hard or it's been really hard for me to establish any kind of garden in a borough of New York City.
00:34:44
Speaker
But I had an experience during COVID where I was out of the city. i was at the time engaged, I'm now married to, um my wife, Roxanne Gay. And I lived in New York and she lived in Los Angeles, so we were having a long distance relationship.
00:35:04
Speaker
And during COVID, we thought it might be better to be in Los Angeles together than in New York because we'd have a lot more sky and we'd also have a car.
00:35:18
Speaker
And so we would be able to have a little bit more freedom and outdoor space. And so I went there and I had a lot of time on my hands.
00:35:29
Speaker
And so I started gardening. ah She has a beautiful backyard, but it was sort of a more typical suburban backyard with grass and boxwoods and a nice tree in the middle. And I thought, well, why not like really get my hands in the dirt since I had gardening.
00:35:44
Speaker
my or I had i'd loved gardening, but most of my attempts were fairly questionable in New York City. Here I was in a different environment with a lot more sun and a lot more conducive weather to planting.
00:35:58
Speaker
And so I started working in the backyard and planted fruit. I have strawberries and blueberries and carrots and tomatoes, which were just absolutely plentiful and still are.
00:36:14
Speaker
ah Some cucumber varieties and some roses and I was getting better and better at it. I did still have some pitfalls, you know, some concerns with drought and fungus and some insects and variety of other things that play gardeners.
00:36:34
Speaker
um But I started writing about it on Instagram. I started making these little visual stories featuring some of the things that I was growing and the way in which they were you know developing and so forth.
00:36:46
Speaker
And some of my friends at the TED conference saw that I was doing this and that happened to be the year that the TED conference went completely online. And they asked if I would be interested in making some interstitials for the in-between moments between talks.
00:37:03
Speaker
And so I did some narrated visual stories, one of which was about gardening. And then I did another piece in 2021 or 2022 after taking an expedition to Antarctica in an attempt to see the total eclipse of the sun that was happening December 2021.
00:37:28
Speaker
And i ended up being commissioned to do a piece in a farm magazine. And between those two pieces, an editor at Hachette for their gardening imprint, Timber Press, saw the work and wrote to me out of the blue and asked if I'd be interested in doing a book like that on gardening.
00:37:51
Speaker
And I wrote back
00:37:55
Speaker
ah like With a somewhat dubious response, because i was like, if you want me to write a book about gardening for gardeners, you've got the wrong person. Because I am still learning and I am still failing more than succeeding, but I'm still trying.
00:38:10
Speaker
And so I suggested maybe a quest for a garden as opposed to a success story about gardening. and And they were very excited about the possibility of that.
00:38:20
Speaker
And that's ultimately what it became. I love one of the images. It's very just very simple image. It's just your hands covered in soil. And ah there's there's a something magical about getting your hands in like warm, loamy soil. And just for you, how would you describe it and your connection to that?
00:38:38
Speaker
Oh, it's delicious. It's absolutely delicious. And I'm always sort of conflicted about whether or not I want to use gloves when I'm gardening because I do really like that feeling.
00:38:49
Speaker
But then again, you know, you want to try to avoid just having completely muddy hands. So so i I do both. Bareback and with gloves.
00:39:01
Speaker
And i just love the feeling of the sun um my back or on my face and a breeze and the sort of quietness that comes with gardening.
00:39:16
Speaker
I love it. And theres there's a moment in the book as well where you you kind of you write of these yeah key lessons that gardening has taught you, be it patience, generosity, perspective, and ah oh my God, handwriting, alternatives, gosh.
00:39:32
Speaker
Sorry. No, no, it's mine. My handwriting and my notes here on my little call sheet. I can read your stuff perfectly. And I love i love your ah your hand drawn lettering. It's always fun to read, read your writing there.
00:39:46
Speaker
um But yeah, with those those key lessons, i just how did those present themselves to you in your gardening journey?
00:39:54
Speaker
Mostly through lessons learned. you You have to have a lot of patience when gardening. Obviously, most things, aside from bamboo, grow pretty slowly.
00:40:09
Speaker
And you can't force that. i mean, you can force bulbs, but that's... different in in that you're not forcing them to grow faster, you're just forcing them to grow sooner.
00:40:22
Speaker
so you you really have to observe nature. You can't control nature. And that is ah really important lesson. And there can really be abundance if you allow things to have room.
00:40:37
Speaker
i i tended to operate for most of my life out of a position of scarcity, that there wasn't enough for for people, that there wasn't enough for sharing. sharing And I've learned that there is indeed an opportunity to share just about anything.
00:40:54
Speaker
And the more you share, the more you'll ultimately have, I think. so So those are some key lessons. Probably another lesson is that, and this relates back to the podcast as well, the more you do something, the better you can get at it if you work at it hard enough.
00:41:12
Speaker
Oh, for sure. Yeah. And when it came to the the writing and the design of the book, ah how did you just land on the particular mix of these? ah I think it was some watercolor, some photography and then the way you the way you letter. How did you just you envision it and put it into practice?
00:41:32
Speaker
That's a great question. you know it was a bit of a struggle initially because the editorial team, my editor wanted a manuscript first and then would ah would edit and approve that and then I would take it to the visuals.
00:41:50
Speaker
And I was really flummoxed by that because I don't work that way. When I'm doing visual stories, I write in the image.
00:42:01
Speaker
And so I might very specifically change a word if it would require my hyphenating that word in the image, and I don't want a hyphen. And so there's a constant play of editing and writing and drawing or painting.
00:42:18
Speaker
And because so I use reference, so all of the drawings, all of the illustrations in the book, whether they're Watercolors, paintings, any any visual imagery that I created is based on a photograph that I took.
00:42:36
Speaker
And so i but having that freedom, i can move things around. I can eliminate a branch. I could um work to develop ah a cleaner background.
00:42:49
Speaker
And so it was very important to me to work concurrently. with the imagery and the words. And so a lot of what I was doing, I knew what kind of narrative arc I wanted to have high altitude, but I didn't necessarily know from page to page how many words were going to be on each page.
00:43:08
Speaker
So the book burgeoned from 50-page book to a 60-page book to an 80-page book to 100-page book to what ended up being, I think, about 120 pages because I kept giving myself more space and more freedom with the language and the imagery. And fortunately, my editor and publisher were really okay with that, which is rather shocking.
00:43:32
Speaker
And I got very, very lucky with the team of people that I worked with at Timber. I get a sense that the the book was probably very nourishing and fun to write and to bring into being. So what was the, or how did you incorporate a sense of play when you were making this book?
00:43:54
Speaker
Well, I have to say that making this book was one of the most enjoyable, nourishing experiences I've had in a really long time.
00:44:06
Speaker
It was so enjoyable and so nourishing. It made me feel like this is the only thing I want to do for the rest of my life. Which, you know, is making for some difficulties. Yeah.
00:44:21
Speaker
Now, that doesn't mean that every moment was glorious because there were moments where I was really stuck with where to take the story next or didn't have the right imagery. And so I and had a pivot then because I didn't have the right image to express what I wanted to express. So therefore, I need to change what I want, it where I want to go next.
00:44:38
Speaker
So there were moments of real... stress in worrying if I would be able to pull this off, wondering if anybody would like it wondering if people would roll their eyes or think it was silly or cliched or...
00:44:52
Speaker
pedantic or humblebraggy or ridiculous. I mean, any number of things I i was envisioning. and But nevertheless, the final experience that I can tell you I had was one of great joy and enthusiasm.
00:45:12
Speaker
And it felt like I'd reached the top of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Like I was in that actualization zone. And that was pretty remarkable. And a moment ago you said there are moments where you felt stuck. And a lot of writers, and ah creative types in general, but primarily writers listen to this show and who, again, I've experienced that degree of stuckness and it's hard to get through that sometimes. So, ah you know, how did you navigate the, you know being stuck and to get through to the other side of that resistance and that that block?
00:45:45
Speaker
find walking helps a lot. I do a lot of walking and it's my primary source of getting out of my head. And so taking a walk with my dog would help, but also deadlines.
00:45:58
Speaker
yeah Deadlines, you know, provide a certain barrier to stuckness being able to last that long without the stuckness becoming a complete state of panic. Yeah. Without the stuckness being, oh, shit, I got to repay the publisher.
00:46:20
Speaker
Exactly. And and also, you know, I had a hard, very hard deadline. And so I did not have a lot of stuck time to indulge in I just had to keep working until I got out of that. So I would pivot, try to do something different, remake something till I felt like I was back in a place where I could move forward.
00:46:43
Speaker
What rituals do you like to have in place on a day when you find yourself ah either illustrating or writing to kind of ah prime the pump, so to speak? Well, I have two modes. One is utter silence and the other silence.
00:47:00
Speaker
TV show on in the background with a procedural that I know has at least, you know, four or five seasons that I can just have running. No commercials, just running in the background.
00:47:12
Speaker
And both of those are sort of my most conducive ways in which I can work. i I made this book watching NYPD Blue, the old procedural.
00:47:27
Speaker
Dennis f Franz in the background. Yeah. And it holds up. A lot of that show holds up. Some of it doesn't, but a lot of it does. And i I loved watching that.
00:47:37
Speaker
I've done other projects to SWAT with Shamar Moore. I've done projects with Criminal Minds. I've done projects with, of course, Law & Order SVU, which remains my number one favorite show.
00:47:53
Speaker
So there you have that. And how does ah living with and being married to a writer ah ah inspire or maybe sometimes ah conflict with your own ah process?
Collaboration and Life Lessons
00:48:06
Speaker
conflicts um but It but it is fun to power parallel work where you know we'll both be on the sofa with our laptops, either watching a procedural or not, and and having those break moments together, or being able to look over from my part ah to like one of the most creative people on the planet and the smartest person I know to ask for feedback on something. like That is...
00:48:33
Speaker
is I'm like very lucky. And ah and in the in the book, too, you you know you write towards the end that I've come to realize that my garden, that any garden is a lot like life.
00:48:46
Speaker
Mistakes will be made. Hearts will be broken. Lessons will be learned. Love will be hoped for. And I think that's just a ah beautiful sentiment that i actually I think ties into not only gardening, but I think it it kind of ties into all the wonderful work you've done with the podcast that there are and just a creative life. Mistakes will be made.
00:49:03
Speaker
Your hearts will break. But nevertheless, we we keep going. Thank you, Brendan. That's a really lovely way of threading my work together, and and I really appreciate that.
00:49:18
Speaker
Well, Debbie, as I bring these conversations down for a landing, um I always love asking the guests at the end just for a recommendation of some kind for the listeners. That can just be anything that you're excited about that is bringing you excitement, be it a brand of coffee, a certain pair of socks, or a fanny pack. It's totally up to you. So I'd extend that to you, Debbie. ah what what What might you ah recommend for the listeners?
00:49:38
Speaker
um Well, I was just interviewed by Elise Hugh for her podcast. She does ah several podcasts. She does the the TED Books podcast, but she also has another podcast um with a partner called Forever 35.
00:49:53
Speaker
And in prep for that interview, i was listening to some of her episodes and they're just absolutely wonderful. i think that they're just really fun, interesting, deep conversations. So I would definitely recommend that.
00:50:09
Speaker
um I just watched Adolescence, which was heartbreaking. Talk about heartbreaking, but beautifully, beautifully made and constructed and acted and directed.
00:50:20
Speaker
So definitely, definitely um recommend that. And yeah. Jumping on the bandwagon, read All Fours by Miranda July and and really appreciated that, especially since I've gone through um menopause as well. So I can relate to that a lot in a lot of different ways.
00:50:42
Speaker
Oh, fantastic. Well, Debbie, what a what a joy to get to speak to you again and i'll then to hear you just about every Monday in ah in my podcast feed. So it's just thank you so much for carving out time to talk about your wonderful new book, The Arc of Your Podcast to Date.
00:50:56
Speaker
And ah yeah, just carving out some time to do this and talk some shop. This is always always a joy, and I thank you very much. Thank you, Brendan. I always love talking to You you always come with the best advice.
00:51:07
Speaker
topics to discuss and and you always conduct really beautiful heartfelt interviews and I want to thank you for that and for having me
00:51:22
Speaker
yes awesome great right thanks to Debbie for coming back on this little podcast that could chew chew baby chew chew Debbie's a headliner man she's a top the rock festival poster don't believe me Get the fuck out of here then.
00:51:39
Speaker
I had one parting shot teed up a couple weeks ago and I didn't do it last week because the podcast ran long. I was thinking of just running that one for this one. um But something kind of flew up my ass in an email that made me pivot this week's jam.
00:51:54
Speaker
Namely that, or namely what? like Should we paywall as creative types and what should be free to all? I'm of the belief that 99% of everything should be free to all.
00:52:06
Speaker
I mean this as a blogger and producer. like One of the six trillion sub stacks I receive dealt with how this one, i'd say a pretty famous writer by all accounts, makes a living as an author.
00:52:19
Speaker
Before I opened it, I thought, I wonder if this is going to be a paywalled sub stack. And it was. Pay me to find out how I make money. It's not how it's titled, but that's how I read it.
00:52:31
Speaker
This is different than, say, like a magazine paying you for work or a publisher paying you for your work or a conference wanting you to be a keynote speaker and paying you for that. My feeling is if you give the bulk of your shit away, more paid opportunities come your way because you're acting in service of the greater community and not trying to nickel and dime people who have few nickels and dimes.
00:52:56
Speaker
It's tricky to decide what should be free or what should cost something. Like, you know, i have a Patreon, as you know, patreon.com slash cnfpod. You know I made my book proposal available to the $4 and $10 Patreon tiers and not necessarily to to the $2 tier or the free tier.
00:53:15
Speaker
Should that have been totally free? And I've harped on the lack of transparency when it comes to book proposals and book advances. Like, am I being a dick for making that a premium offering, I guess? Or should something like a book proposal that took me a year to craft be made available only at a premium? ah I made my spreadsheet template of how I organize my work for a book project or maybe a long article available for everybody.
00:53:41
Speaker
The podcast will never have a paywalled version. My two newsletters will never be paywalled. I know the desperation of wanting seemingly privileged and walled off information and not having the money to get some fucking answers.
00:54:00
Speaker
Not shortcuts, not some life hack to skip a line, just some fucking help.
00:54:08
Speaker
It's only through giving away just about everything I do that I've had, speaking opportunities at conferences. I'm admittedly not the best, but people seem to dig what I have to say. Maybe. i don't know. It's only because of this podcast that I started on a lark in 2013 that anything positive has happened to me at all.
Community and Content Accessibility
00:54:25
Speaker
But it came from that germ of wanting to platform people who weren't necessarily famous. People like me who like had a lot to say, but very few places to say it. Listen, I say all this shit not to pat myself on the fucking back.
00:54:40
Speaker
It's just when I see people who all by all outward accounts don't need to squeeze money from desperate people and then insist on squeezing money from them under the pretense that this little bit of advice might get them that agent, that publisher, that life changing book deal.
00:54:57
Speaker
I find it off putting. If you have that big of a platform, hard earned at that. And I don't, I don't take that away from anyone who's earned that through their work. then you can probably afford to leverage your platform for paid gigs and better magazine articles or book deals and earn your money from the power brokers and gatekeepers.
00:55:17
Speaker
You can act more like Robin Hood. you not that you're stealing, but amassing money, amassing some money maybe, but also just knowledge that others could desperately use.
00:55:29
Speaker
Because money shouldn't be the reason... a writer feels they can't voice their story, if you have experience that could open that door for them.
00:55:40
Speaker
Now, I'm not saying you should be taken advantage of and bleed yourself out for people unwilling to do the work. I'm not suggesting that at all, though it could be interpreted that way, I guess. you know A blog post should be free, um but maybe a 30 or 60 minute phone call, that should be an upcharge.
00:55:57
Speaker
Reading someone's work and offering thoughtful and truthful answers Notes, yes. Upcharge. That's been a, or there's been a strong push toward each writer having to be these entrepreneurial silos of writing and editing services. and
00:56:14
Speaker
Every writer has a shingle up. And you better be specific if you want to stand out, but that's a topic for another day. Another parting shot. There's no easy answer to this quandary.
00:56:28
Speaker
yeah I want writers to make a happy buck, however they see fit. But when writers who once railed against the gatekeepers then start gatekeeping, you soon realize the insidious nature of systems and status roles, who's up and who's down, to quote Seth Godin.
00:56:44
Speaker
All going to say is, before you think of dropping a for-paid-subscribers-only button, Ask yourself if 10 years ago or 15 or 20 years ago, you would have appreciated such a roadblock to the path you wanted to lead.
00:56:56
Speaker
that might That might make you think once or twice. So stay wild, CNFers. Pardon the lecture. Hope you didn't feel spoken at. I don't know. It was on my mind. What are you going to If you can't do, you interview.
00:57:07
Speaker
ya.